Surf Report is a new iPhone app from Oakley and Surfline that provides mobile access to surf reports, community news, photos, wallpapers, and Oakley Team Rider bios. With it, Oakley hopes to secure its place in the hands and minds of every tech savvy surfer on a daily basis, and to reinforce their brand as one that caters to the needs of extreme sports enthusiasts.
Take the mystery out of checking the surf with technology engineered to be on the go with you. Check swell direction. Monitor the weather. Chart a 2–day forecast. Get your daily mobile surf report for your favorite beaches – thousands worldwide. And do it all from the comfort of your iPhone or iPod Touch.
Surf Report does just about everything a surfer could want, including saving your favorite surf spots for up to the minute info before you start your surf commute (including air temp, water temp, tide charts, swell breakdown, wind, and sunrise/sunset when available), using GPS to locate nearby surf spots should you find yourself in unfamiliar territory, directing you to those surf spots using the Google Maps, showing current conditions for when Mother Nature wants to rain on your surf parade, continuously updating the forecast to help you time that precious few minutes between the storms, and even predicting the forecast a few days out to make sure nothing gets in the way of those killer waves.
With a lightly branded button, splash screen, and Team Rider bios, Oakley has managed to create an attractive, functional, and useful tool without over-branding or over-selling. They know that by providing value to their user, Surf Report will get used, talked about, passed around and enjoyed. They also know that with surfers especially, an over-branded application would have gone unused or even cursed, so they were smart to partner with a trusted source like Surfline and let the app speak for itself.
The Good:
- Light and appropriate branding doesn’t annoy the user, yet still reinforces the brand’s message.
- Being useful, simple and full-featured means this application will be used frequently.
- $0 price means a low barrier to entry, putting Surf Report in the hands of anyone that wants it.
The Bad:
- Relies on a third-party for data, though users will blame Oakley if something goes wrong.
The Future:
- Mobile applications allow a company to provide useful information to their customers, frequently reinforce their brand, and stay on the cutting edge of technology.
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Fri, Nov 14, 2008
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